Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Yuzu kosho is one of those condiments that elevates a meal from being merely good to memorable. At home we used to sprinkle it into our individual bowls of pork hot pot with ramen, in which the citrusy peppery-ness of the sprightly yuzu kosho was particularly well-paired with the unctuous broth.

@burritowings--I think that's so true!

With the exception of 1 blog in my blog roll, the food blogs that I read do not do reviews of restaurants. They cook their own food, comment on it, share ideas, etc.

As far as the "anonymous" complaint, she should be more worried about the customer that anonymously leaves the restaurant unsatisfied, than one blogger. The negative comments I usually hear are after lunch at work (I ate at _______ and it was awful) or on Monday's (we went to so and so over the weekend and were Sooooo disappointed).

I value the opinion of 99.9% of food bloggers more than Kelly Choi. Most of them eat, and quite a few of them can string sentences together in an impromptu fashion without the use of a teleprompter. Yes, perhaps most of them don't have a size 0 behind attached to a 5'11 body. But you can tell by reading if someone knows food and you should respect their opinion, more often than not--versus someone who becomes a 'food personality' based upon their appearance alone.

But if I was a supermodel who looked like Kelly Choi, I wouldn't bother learning too much about food, so I can't blame her too much :P

She OBVOUSLY meant commenters and not bloggers.

i'm still trying to figure out how she went from public access to national tv.

her comment is the same straw man crap that i see in the news media all the time talking about political blogs. sure, there are assholes who don't know what they are talking about, but it's not like they are widely read or respected (for that reason). it's just a way for her to make clear to everyone that she is an officially sanctioned opinion maker and that people who write "blogs" aren't (she is very serious people and those dirty fucking hippies are not).

on the other hand, she has a good point about giving restaurants a chance to resolve any problems you have before you leave.

@Adam Kuban - Thanks. I think the provocative part of the quote is still something worth talking about, and agree with @lawofmurphy that most food blogs are about cooking AND that Choi is mostly "tilting at widmills."

The vast majority of food blogs I have seen are simply a blogger's personal relationship with food and cooking. To let any media, be it traditional, new media attached to traditional, or other bloggers, try and paint food bloggers with her broad brush in the initial portion of the quote does a disservice to all of us who simply love food and want to share our perspective with the world.

And/But while that vast majority of blogs are positive, informational and/or instructional; there are those who believe the ability to post opinions about restaurants or food on the internet justifies that opinion as well-formed. Oftentimes the coexistent beliefs that having no editor means your blog requires no technical proficiency in writing AND that your audience will be better off for having read your hatchet-job review find their way into the mix as well.

So I suppose 1)Choi's quote is misleading in-and-of itself and paints with too broad a brush; but 2) there are enough examples of her kernal of complaint to warrant use of the quote as a jumping off point to have that meta-chat about what makes good food blogs and why people might think food bloggers have some monolithic uber-foodie chip on their shoulders.

Wow, and that is WAY too much typing in my 'professional' voice and WAY too long since I wrote snark-ily.

can't help it. i was born as a mean ass motherfucker. oh wellz.

I think she is confusing bloggers with yelpers.

@kitchengeeking, @mgnnn: Yeah. You're right. I just posted the rest of the quote. I was guilty of only putting the most provocative part up. The quote now is in its entirety.

Mmmmmm. I finally lost my Shake Shack cherry two days ago (UWS version), and now I can't wait to go back. Count me in for flash-moburgering.

Yum! Makes me want a burger. No Shake Shack in Boston, but I'll give Flat Patties a try.

I must say, whatever one thinks of candy corn in reality, those imaginary candy corn illustrations are amazing.